January 2018

01/31/2018

The traditional Valentine colors are in the red tones or pink, so I thought I would leap out of the box and go for blue. This card will go to my one year old great-granddaughter nearer to Valentine Day.

I used the "Hedgehog" stamp that is new in the Occasional Mini Catalog. The green is a strip of designer series paper from the Sweet Soiree paper. The hearts are punched out of the red glimmer paper. The cute little hedgehogs are stamped with Early Expresso ink on Crumb Cake cardstock and fancy cut.

I love the doilies that are now in the catalog. I cut one in half and punched out a Whisper White circle and cut that in half to stamp the words, "adorable you". Genna Bell is adorable, so this card is made for her! Inside is stamped with Happy Birthday and has more glitter hearts.

For a change, I just wanted a change of traditional colors for a special little girl's Valentine. Of course it will have to have some money in it since she can't have candy.

You still have time to order your stamps and materials to make a few Valentines for your loved ones. Just go to "shop now" and place you order. A hand made card is a gift from the heart.

INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Assemble the box per the directions provided in the package.

2. Fold the 1-1/2” X 12” strip of True Gentleman Designer Series paper around the circumference of the box, lightly folding at the corners, then remove the strip and burnish the folds with your bone folder.

3. Place Tear & Tape on the strip of DSP and adhere to the box. It will not meet in the middle, but other elements will cover the empty space.

4. Punch two shapes using the Tailored Tag Punch, and adhere to the front of the box over the strip of plaid DSP, overlapping them in the center.

5. Using Chocolate chip ink, stamp the “To A Classy Kind of Guy” sentiment on the piece of Very Vanilla Thick cardstock.

6. Using Crushed Curry ink, stamp the striped heart on the Very Vanilla thick cardstock.

7. Punch out the sentiment with the Tailored Tag punch.

8. Fussy cut the heart using Paper Snips or cut them out with the matching framelit from the Sweet & Sassy Framelits.

9. Apply Stampin’ Dimensionals to the backs of the heart and the punched sentiment, and adhere them to the center front of the box, with the heart on the upper left of the sentiment.

10. Tie the Night of Navy Corduroy Ribbon into a knot and adhere to the heart with Mini Glue Dots.

11. Add a Metallic Enamel Shape Heart to the right side of the stamped tag.

All of these items and be found in my on line store. YOU CAN FIND MOST OF THE NEW ITEMS IN THE NEW OCCASIONAL MINI! Place your order now in order to have your supplies to make this before Valentines Day.

01/26/2018

I am often asked if I make money as a Stampin’Up Demonstrator.The answer is “Yes.”Selling supplies in not the only way you can make money, but sales do help.With your sales, at the beginning level, Bronze, you keep 20% of your sale total.After you promote to the next level, you keep 25% of your sales.

Sounds good Doesn’t it?It gets better, when you sell over $400 a month, you receive an over-ride from 5% to 40%, depending on your sales.

As you recruit, you earn a percentage of their sales.If they recruit, you earn money on those sales as well up to the third level of your down-line.

Earn cash bonuses and products, incentive trips, and other rewards offered by Stampin’Up.

You can create your own money making opportunities since you are an independent business owner.You can do this by teaching classes and getting paid for your expertise: sell finished products; make and sell kits on line as well as class tutorials.Sell your cards, scrapbook pages, party favors, and other items on EBay or Esty.

The money that you earn is up to you.It only takes commitment to earn the income you wish to have with your own stamping business.The opportunity is there.

Now, during Sale-A-Bration, is a great time to join Stampin’Up and become an Independent Stampin’Up Demonstrator.You can purchase your start-up kit for only $99.Choose $125 of items from the catalog or the OccasionalMini that you wish to work with.Plus that, between now and March 31st. you choose any two sets in the catalog or mini to add to your kit.There is no shipping and handling on your kit cost.All business materials that you need to get started is furnished free.

01/23/2018

Have you noticed that when a group is very talkative and you give them something to color, everything gets quiet?Coloring is very calming and relaxing.As adults, most of us still enjoy coloring.

The Petal Passion Designer Series Paper, #145589, in the new mini, is great for coloring.I love using it with the Stampin’Blends.This afternoon, I took a half of sleet of one of the papers and cut it in order to make three cards.I really had an enjoyable, relaxing afternoon letting my creativity flow.

You do not have to color every section or the paper.You can choose what you want for the center of attention, color that, and leave the rest of the design in the black and white.I really loved the roses, so this is the focal point for this card.With it being near Valentine Day, I felt

needed. I cut out the word "Love" with a framelit and red glimmer paper. Also, I punched out three hearts from the glimmer paper and added to the card. It is mounted on Real Red cardstock and a Soft Skies card base.

If you choose, you can color the complete design.With this piece of the Designer Series Paper, I colored all of the flower and added a verse on a heart the same pink as in the flowers.

Another way you can use the Designer Series Paper is called the Black Out technique.The flowers were colored and the remaining white area was blacked out with a black Sharpie pen.

All three of these cards are from one half of a sheet of the Petal Passion Designer Series Paper.You have twelve different designs to choose from in the package.Order yours today, so you and color and relax for an hour or two.I used the Stampin” Blends Markers which makes the blending and shading so much easier.These are on page 32 of the new Occassional Mini.You can purchase the markers separately or as a complete set.

Order your paper and markers now by just clicking on Shop Now on the left side.

01/20/2018

One good advantage of being snowed in is that I have time to stamp! I will let the kids play in the snow and I will play in my workshop. I need another name than Workshop. Maybe I should call it my Stamping Den.

I have plenty of stamps other than Heartfelt Blooms, but I like to take one set and see how many ways I can use it before going on to another set.

This time I stamped on Very Vanilla cardstock. I had to try this set with Elegant Eggplant. I stamped the image in the Elegant Eggplant on the Very Vanilla. On the inside flower, I took a blender pen and ink from a ink refill and colored the inside flower which popped it out. No, I did not fussy cut this time. Then the greetings in stamped in the Elegant Eggplant on a scrap of Very Vanilla cardstock. I has Washi Tape left from the Holiday Mini which is only a 1/4" or less in gold. I lined each edge of the banner with this. Then I used the gold facet dots on each end of the banner and also a larger one in the center of the flower.

This was a fast card to make. It was completed within fifteen minutes.

I have dozens of ideas that I want to try with this great Sale-A-Bration set, Heartfelt Blooms, but I need to move on to another new set and see what I can do with that one.

Sale-A-Bration is a great time to hold a party. With a $250 order or more you get an extra $25 to spend as well as your hostess credits. One of my customers had a party this weekend with seven people and she got three outside orders from friends out of town. She ended up with $122 free merchandise of her choice and she got the complete set of the new Stampin'Blends for half price. An afternoon of fun with your friends and you get the rewards while I do the work. Sound like a good deal? You can do the same.

Contact me if you want to find out how you can earn free merchandise. You can even purchase the demonstrator kit for only $99 and you order $125 of merchandise of your choice, plus during Sale-A-Bration, two more sets, any price, from the catalog or the new mini catalog. The you can host your own party and get the hostess credits along getting paid a commission on the sales. what a great way to start your own business. I would love to have you on my team. Contact me for more information at my www.stampersjoy.stampinup.net website or just click on Join Now on the right.

01/18/2018

When I look at a set, I ask myself, how many ways can I use this set. When I first saw the stamp set in the Sale-A-Bration brochure, I thought this was what I call a "Dead End Set" with only one way to use it. When seeing what some of my fellow Stampin'Up demonstrator friends did with the set, I decided to give it a try. After all, it is free with a $50 purchase of merchandise.

What fun this set is to play with. I think I have used it every way except the way they showed the set in the brochure.

This card was stamped in Crushed Curry ink which is a rich yellow. I decide to color the leaf with Wild Wasabi green. The markers cover lighter colors without a problem. I did let some of the yellow bleed through. I like levels on cards, so I re-stamped only the center of the flower twice and fussy cut them out to add to create more texture to the card. The center of the flowers are dotted with a Soft Suede marker and the verse is stamped using Soft Suede.

The image is on Whisper White and layered on Soft Suede and added to a thick Whisper White card base. On the inside I added only a corner of the stamp in the Crushed Curry.

You can earn the great set, Heartfelt Blooms with a $50 purchase of products from the catalog, the mini catalog, and even the Clearance Rack. To view the catalogs, click on the button to the right and place your order by clicking on the top button which will take you to my Stampin'Up Business Website.

01/16/2018

First impressions can be totally wrong. Have you ever looked at a set in the catalog and thought, Yukk, who would want that? That was my first impressing when I viewed the Heartfelt Blooms set in the Sale-A-Bration brochure. I was not impressed in the least. Soon I was seeing others using the set and found it soon on my order. This set is free with a $50 purchase, so why not order it?

Well, while being snowed in today with five inches of snow and still snowing at the rate of one-half inch an hour, I headed down to my workshop. This is the set I decided to play with. I was very happy with the results.

This is my first try. I used Smoky Slate ink and stamped one image in the center. Then I stamped off with the smoky slate and continued stamping the complete background. I had this brain storm to color the flowers with my watercolor pencils and blender pen. That was a dud! Very boring piece of work. So I pulled out a scrap of Whisper White from my scrap box and stamped the inside flower, three times using Flirty Flamingo, one of the In Colors that will be going out in June. These were fussy cut out. I tinted the inside White Spots using my Stampin'Blend alcohol markers. "Thinking of you" was stamped in Basic Grey and I lightly sponged around the cardstock. Then I placed the three cutout flowers on the card. This is mounted in Flirty Flamingo cardstock and added to a Smok9y Slate card base.

I really like the way the card turned out. My first reaction with the grey and the watercolor pencils was to pitch the card in the trash, but that is hard for me to do, so I kept playing to correct my mistake of trying to use watercolor pencils over grey. As it turned out, it gave the flowers a soft background.

Moral of this story, when you make a mess, don't toss it. Look at it and decide what you can do to turn you mess into a master piece. LOL

01/15/2018

With all of my new toys, I feel like a kid at Christmas. I do not know what to play with first.

I love the new set, Waterfront, in the new mini. It has been years since Stampin'Up has had a stamp set where you can build different scenes with. I tried a new technique using this set with the Brusho Crystals and love the results.

I used Smoky Slate ink to create the scene. I inked the stamp, stamped off, and then stamped on my cardstock for each image.

I stamped my mountains first, then the earth and the water in the front. Then I stamped the trees. This will be very light.

Using the crystals as watercolors, on one of my acrylic blocks I added some water with my Aqua Brush and added a few blue crystals. The more water you use, the lighter the color. I used water where it was only faintly tinted and put some sky in around the mountains. Using some of the blue that was slightly darker, I added shading to the mountains, leaving white areas.

I did the same on the ground, with the blue first adding shadows under the trees. Mixing some of the green which has a brownish tint, I add some of the blue and added to the ground. Then I added the green to the trees using some that was lighter and then the darker areas to give depth.

The huts were added by brushing on the dark green on the stamp, then stamping. I did touch them up with more color.

These are so much fun to play with and you can do so many different techniques with this great product.

The Brusho Crystals are # 144101 on page 26 of the new mini and the Waterfront set is on page 48, #146386. I love both of these new products. You can go to my online store and order these now. With only three more dollars added to you order, you can choose a free Sale-A-Bration item from the brochure.

01/04/2018

New Product:Stampin’Blends.

These are the new, high quality, alcohol markers than Stampin’Up has added to their line of coloring tools.These are dual tipped markers that come in twelve colors.There is a dark shade and light shade of each of these colors.This makes it so easy to shade like a pro and the two colors will blend so smoothly.You are able to purchase the colors as a single marker or the light and dark of a color as a set.If you want to purchase only a few to see if you like them, I recommend buying a color for your favorite color, light and dark, and a set of Old Olives for leaves since flowers seem to be the most common image in stamps.This will give you colors you need to practice coloring with.Once you have a chance to play with them, you will love using these tools.

You do want to use Memento Tuxedo Black to stamp the image before you color.Regular black ink or Stazon will dissolve and run when used with the Stampin’Blends.Make sure you have the Memento Tuxedo Black pad when you order your alcohol markers.

These markers will work best with the Whisper White cardstock or the Very Vanilla.The colors will bleed through the cardstock.Make certain you have scrap paper under your work.When finished, layer the painted image and then place on the card.This card was made by a stamping friend of mine. She used the Stampin' Blends to color the truck I love the ease of shading using these new markers.

You can purchase them at my demonstrator website by clicking on Shop Now.

01/02/2018

Those of us that have been friends with Stampin'Up for at least the past year, anxiously look forward to the great sale of the year, Sale-A-Bration! Tomorrow, Wednesday, January 3, the great sale begins and will last through the month of March.

What is Sale-A-Bration?

First as a customer or demonstrator, when you spend fifty dollars for merchandise, even including Paper Pumpkin or Clearance items, you get to chose on item from the Sale-A-Bration brochure free. No tax or shipping added to this item. It is free.

New items will be added to the brochure the middle of February.

What advantage is it to host a workshop?

A workshop is considered to be a $150 order. You receive hostess rewards for being a hostess. But, during Sale-A-Bration, if your workshop is $250, you get a bonus of $25 extra in free merchandise. Your workshop can even be a catalog workshop. After Christmas, things get a little boring into January because little is going on. Why not get some friends together and have a stamping party. For those in the Huntington, WV area, I hold these in my workshop, so all you need to do is invite and remind your friends. I do the work.

Really want a bargain, join my team of demonstrators.

You pay $99 for your kit and get to chose $125 of items for your kit. During Sale-A-Bration you get to chose two extra stamp sets, any cost, to add to your kit free. It is quiet a bargain to get at least $175 of merchandise for only $99. You will have the until the end of June to really decide if you want to turn your hobby of stamping into a part or full time business and earn money doing something you love to do.

You can sign up during Sale-A-Bration at any time. Just click on Join Now and it will take you to my Stampin'Up business page where you can read more about becoming a demonstrator and sign up.

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Disclaimer

This is my personal blog. I am an Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator and responsible for its content. Stampin' Up! does not endorse the use of or contents of the classes, services, or non-Stampin' Up! products I may offer here.